Game Boy Evolution And Two GameCube Next Teams?

Time for something new: a rumour report by way of a Nintendo Watch informant. Obviously this informant has no track record so far, so you’ll have to take his word that it could actually come from trusted sources pretty close to Nintendo.

On the new Game Boy, ‘The Star Child’ writes: “The working title is Game Boy Evolution. Current designs are flip-tops with backlit screens similar to GBA SP, though it’ll use GameCube-style tiny DVD’s. Graphics should be slightly more powerful than that seen on the Sega Dreamcast. Bluetooth technology will be built-in. Apparently, the new system will be compatible with previous Game Boy games, which will be downloaded to the system through a device similar to a hard drive. My source tells me a rumour column in an American games magazine will soon publish more on this.”

The thing with specs like this is anyone could come up with them. They sound like Nintendo’s well-judged answer to PlayStation Portable. One thing I can’t see happening is inclusion of a Bluetooth chip — not after WaveBird and the supposed 802.11 support of the Dual-Screen handheld.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Nintendo mentions ‘Game Boy Evolution’ at the coming E3 trade show, which they might want to do in an effort to prove that the DS is not the new GBA.

My informant continues on GameCube Next. Apparently two separate hardware development teams are working on Nintendo’s next console, both co-operating with various external resources: “Two versions of the console is unlikely. I’d guess Nintendo is waiting to see which version best fits their need. Coming up are the specs for both versions supposedly in development.”

GameCube Next Version 1

2.7 GHz PowerPC G5 Processor

512 MB RAM (128 of that dedicated to video, 64 dedicated to sound)

600 MHz Graphics Chip

Built-in 15 GB Hard Drive

GameCube Next Version 2

Dual 1.8 GHz IBM G5 PowerPC Processors

256 DDR Main Memory (64 of that dedicated to sound, a new 7.1 surround technology which will run at a quality of 196 KHz)

“The inclusion of a hard drive in both models is of course interesting because the Xbox recently had its plans for a hard drive removed and there is no intention to have one in Sony’s PlayStation 3. Furthermore the new surround technology could point to Factor 5 no longer being on board.”

The same goes here: anyone could come up with this — and there’s actually at least one hole in the specs. The PowerPC processor is referred to as ‘G5’, but G5 is an Apple brand: this particular chip usually goes by the name of ‘PowerPC 970′. Of note here is that my informant at least once mentions G5 as a code name for the console itself, which isn’t too strange as GameCube Next will be Nintendo’s fifth TV console system.

Hopefully I’ll soon be able to prove these specs right or wrong. If you have more information on Nintendo’s next generation consoles suitable for publication on Nintendo Watch, please let me know.